Authors: Blake Charlton
Spellbound (6 page)
The ghost, still unable to guess how much time had passed while in the book, wondered what part of his textual mind sensed time and if he could connect to it. However, when he tried to send out exploratory sentences, a stiff pressure held them in place. He tried twice more before realizing that the book he was in had been closed. The hierophant who had been editing the kite must have picked up his book.
Was he going to sit on a shelf for decades until someone pulled the book down? Perhaps he could find his few Magnus passages and use them to push the book open?
Suddenly the pressure holding the ghost on the page vanished. With a jarring speed, his face flew out of an open page.
Once again, he was peering out of an open book on the floor. Before him stretched the hallway where he had encountered the warkite. The hierophant from the library stood beside him. She must have been carrying the book and dropped it.
The woman lowered her veil, grimaced, and then let out a rush of incomprehensible words. Her eyes widened in terror. She brought her hands to her mouth as if shocked. Then she lowered her eyebrows in concentration. For a moment no sound came. Then she let out a fluid mash of words.
Soundlessly, Shannon swore. A powerful and unknown spell must be locked around the parts of the woman's brain that allowed her to speak. She had expressive aphasia.
The woman's gibberish rose and then fell. A distant chorus of voices answered. She began walking toward the clamoring voices.
Shannon stuck his head farther out of the book and watched her walk down the hallway. He imagined the book as the “ground” and focused his Magnus sentence in his chin. Awkwardly, he used his chin to lift another page. From this new crack in the book came first his fingers, then his whole right hand.
With concentration, he used three silvery sentences in his reconstructed hand to turn the page from which his head emerged. The world tilted, and then all his text began to interconnect and pull itself free. The pages flipped faster and faster, releasing paragraph after paragraph that wove themselves into his body. When the last page turned and pushed him away, he slid a few feet along the floor and stopped.
Down the hall, the wailing grew louder. Cautiously, he stood and walked back to the library. The door was open. Inside, the warkite lay folded next to a stack of books. The hierophant must have deactivated its text. Shannon peered out the window but saw no warkites in the sky. For the moment, he was safe.
So he turned and trotted after the aphasic hierophant. The hallway ran in a slow curve. Through the windows, he saw more red-tiled roof, ornate sandstone minarets, glimpses of the city beyond. Every thirty feet or so, he passed a smaller hallway that ran toward the dome's center.
The hierophant's gibberish now rose and fell to a manic cadence. Coming around a corner, Shannon caught sight of her just before she broke into a run.
He hurried after, keeping a safe distance. The voices answering her grew louder. The woman ran faster. He sped up.
Then something made him stop.
He looked back down the hall. He now stood on the other side of the sanctuary's dome, the shaded side. No sunlight came through the windows here. The hallways leading toward the dome's center were nearly black. But why had he stopped? Had he heard something?
It came again. He jumped.
It was just barely audible. He walked toward it, away from the direction the hierophant had been running.
It came again. A chill ran down his ghostly body.
“Shannon.” It was a feeble whisper. “Shannon.”
Something about the voice was familiar.
Shannon's hands began to tremble. Suddenly, he wished he could return to being a fragmented consciousness, distanced from his ability to feel emotions like dread.
The whisper came again. “Here.”
With a start, Shannon realized that the voice was coming from one of the hallways to the dome's center.
Someone was standing in the darkâa hunched figure leaning against the wall. A thin old man? A creature standing on the figure's shoulder flapped its wings.
“Blood and hell!” Shannon swore without sound. He stepped back.
“No!” the old man pleaded. “No, stay. Please ⦔
Shannon halted. The stranger's voice was raw with desperation.
“You know me.” The old man took a few halting steps toward him. “You know me.”
Shannon took another step back but then stopped. The stranger was right. But ⦠the memory, it wasn't all there.
Shannon waited. The old man did not move. Shannon took a cautious step toward him.
“Oh ⦔ the old man said. “Oh, I have missed you ⦔ The stranger took two more halting steps forward. “Please. Please, come back.”
Now closer to the light, Shannon saw that the creature standing on the stranger's shoulder was a large blue parrot. The skin around her beak and eyes was bright yellow. The old man had tawny skin, a hooked nose, two blank white eyes, long silvery dreadlocks.
“Shannon,” the old man whispered and held out a hand.
Filled with confusion, fear, and longing, the ghost held out his own hand and tried to say “Shannon.”
As Francesca fell from the lofting kite, her eyes met Deirdre's. Time slowed, and she could identify every radial fleck in Deirdre's green irises, every black strand of hair flickering before her tawny face. The immortal woman's mouth was parted, as if she were just about to say something extremely interesting.
Then time jumped forward. Francesca plummeted.
Above her, the air warden's kite wrapped around its pilot. The hierophant shot downward as if loosed from a giant bow and struck her in an awkward, aerial tackle. The world spun. The sanctuary seemed above her as she fell down into blue.
Then the kite coiled around her and pressed her close to the air warden. He had raised his veil, covering everything but his light brown eyes.
It had been three years.
Francesca's heart was kicking, but the terror of her fall was melting into giddiness. The pilot hadn't looked at her face yet; he was distracted by the approaching ground.
Two sheets of the red sailcloth stretched forward and out to form narrow wings. A tiny adjustment in these wings tilted them to a horizontal position and set them shooting southward as they fell. Avel's sandstone buildings passed below, then the city's outer walls.
The wings broadened, slowing their fall and increasing gliding speed toward a ridge called Spillwind's Hope. It rose from the intersection of the savanna and the foothills and so forced the wind upward into a lifting draft.
Francesca's breathing began to slow. The pilot was an expert. Of course he was. She found that she was smiling broadly, idiotically. They were going to live.
She looked eastward across the savanna and the receding rain clouds. Two caravan roads cut straight brown lines through the grass to converge on Avel.
Her giddiness dissipated as she wondered if they would have to land in the savanna. Until she came to Avel, Francesca had never seen grass like
that which covered the Deep Savanna. It grew seven feet tall and consisted of thick, bamboolike segments. It reduced vision to a few inches and nearly halted movement. A party armed with scythes could cut a narrow path through the stalks, but the grass soon dulled even the sharpest blade.
that which covered the Deep Savanna. It grew seven feet tall and consisted of thick, bamboolike segments. It reduced vision to a few inches and nearly halted movement. A party armed with scythes could cut a narrow path through the stalks, but the grass soon dulled even the sharpest blade.
By stepping off a road, one could become lost in the grass ocean. Caravan guards told stories of men who stepped just a few feet into the stalks and became disoriented. The miserable souls would spend days wandering, at times coming within a biscuit toss of the road. Almost always, they died of thirst.
And that was to say nothing of the hundred-mile grass fires or headless katabeasts or sun-eclipsing bee swarms or savanna lycanthropes.
Every Western Spirish child knew of the massive, intelligent lycanthropes that moved through the grass ocean as a wolf might run through a meadow. Hidden within the tall grass, the lycanthropes were safe from hierophantic pilots and warkites.
More insidiously, lycanthropes could sometimes seem human. Some Spirishmen believed the beasts transformed their bodies into human bodies. Others supposed they used spells to appear human. Whatever the case, everyone agreed the creatures and the blasting spells their spellwrights could cast were more dangerous at night.
The city guards of Avel were constantly resisting lycanthrope attack. The beasts would rush the walls and try to knock them down with their blasting spells. More chilling stories came from the caravan men who crossed the savanna. They described lycanthropes who would cry out like men lost in the grass, only to devour anyone foolish enough to run to their aid. Other caravans described camps of men out on the savanna who would invite unwary travelers to join them by their campfire, only to change into their lycanthropic bodies as soon as the travelers let down their guard.
As sensational as these stories were, they paled in comparison to those of the Savanna Walker, an ancient monster that roamed the plains. Some said the Walker was an elder god who had inhabited the continent before humanity had crossed the ocean. Others claimed it was the souls of men who'd died of thirst in the savanna. All the stories spoke of an unspeakably hideous body and of its shrill scream. Anyone who saw the beast or heard its voice was driven mad. However, while most Spirish adults knew lycanthropes to be real, most believed the Savanna Walker a mere ghost story.
Francesca looked back at the infirmary's roof. The cloud of blindness covered the tip of one minaret. She shivered.
“Hold on,” the hierophant said. “It's choppy in the ridge lift.”
Francesca wondered what, exactly, she was supposed to hold on to when the sailcloth surrounding her disappeared. In an instant of terrifying
freefall, they twisted to face upward. Then the red cloth leapt away and with a thump popped into a lofting kite. Francesca found herself hanging in a harness that had been made of the hierophant's expansive green robes.
freefall, they twisted to face upward. Then the red cloth leapt away and with a thump popped into a lofting kite. Francesca found herself hanging in a harness that had been made of the hierophant's expansive green robes.
Francesca's hands tingled.
A spellwright had to be fluent in a magical language to see its runes. As a wizard, Francesca could see only Numinous, Magnus, and the common languages. The hierophantic language was invisible to her. However, spellwrights could sense proximity to unknown language by a nonvisual “synesthesic” sensation. A tingling in both hands was Francesca's synesthesic reaction to the hierophantic spells moving through the cloth that surrounded her.
Now their rig flew over Spillwind's Hope. The pilot moved his hands along the woven suspension lines that stretched from the canopy to their harnesses. No doubt he was casting spells within the lines.
An instant later, the canopy changed shape and banked the kite into a sharp turn. Here the air was rising in turbulent surges. By cutting a tight circle within the upward draft, they began to recover the altitude lost during their fall.
The wind was cold and strong but didn't blow too loudly. She easily heard the hierophant when he said, “Once high enough, I'll edit this rig into a jumpchute. It can pull us to the wind garden, but that'll deplete its text. I can't take you back without refitting.”
Francesca cleared her throat. “Do it.”
The pilot's hands halted on the suspension lines, fouling the kite's circular path. They fell a few feet before he made several movements that restored their path. The action tossed Francesca's long braid about.
The pilot turned to her. “Fran?”
“Cyrus,” she said, staring straight ahead.
He seemed about to say something more but then returned his attention to the suspension lines.
They turned another circle. As the sanctuary passed before Francesca, she saw a commotion among the lofting kites. The yellow kite that held Deirdre was descending the final few feet to its minaret. Francesca watched the kite vanish into the Savanna Walker's cloud of blindness. Again she shivered.
A sudden upward gust tossed them higher and pushed her against Cyrus. She didn't look, but from the corner of her eye she noticed that he was editing the harnesses so as to put more space between them. She said, “I thought you were off becoming an airship captain.”
“I was,” he said curtly.
There followed an uncomfortable silence. “Then why did you come back?”
“I was a first mate on a cruiser flying out of Erram, but they offered me a promotion to air warden here. A warden has a better chance of making captain.”
“Oh.” She paused. “And how long have you been back?”
“A fortnight.”
She started to ask why he hadn't told her of his return but then found herself asking, “Did you marry her?”
He moved a hand along the suspension lines. “No,” he said just loud enough to be heard over the wind. “And are you a full physician now?”
“I am. The training was very demanding.”
“I'm sure.”
Something entirely different occurred to Francesca. “Cyrus, can I ask you a strange question?”
He laughed. “You can't make this conversation any stranger than it already is.”
“When we were together ⦠did you ever notice if I wore an anklet?”
He looked over at her.
“Around my left ankle,” she said. “Did I have a small silver chain?”
“Sure. I remember that.”
“You do? God-of-gods, why didn't you tell me?”
He studied her face as if trying to figure out if she was joking. “Why would I tell you about your own jewelry?”
“Did we ever talk about the anklet?”
“I was wrong, Fran; you've made this conversation even stranger.”
“Just tell me. When did you first see it? Did we talk about it?”
He paused. “I think I asked about it once when we were first together. You never replied.”
Francesca felt her blood go cold. She had been bound by the demonâor by something with powerful textsâalmost as soon as she had arrived in Avel.
“What happened back there?” Cyrus asked.
She took a long breath. It was a question she would like answered as well. They were almost as high as the tops of the Auburn Mountains.
“Fran?” Cyrus asked. “Is the sanctuary truly under attack by a foreign deity?”
Again, she didn't answer. Could she trust him?
“I'm Avel's air warden. I need to know.”
Francesca decided to stall. “You have an order from an officer of the canonist.”
“And I am obeying it.” He studied her. “But do you know what happened?”
She looked straight ahead.
They flew two more circles. Suddenly Cyrus pointed to the north. “See that?” He seemed to be pointing to empty sky. “It's an incoming airship. We aren't expecting one for another ten days.”
Francesca narrowed her eyes and barely made out a white speck in the blue.
“Fran, you had better tell me everything. This is grave.”
She looked at him, but his light brown eyes were fixed on the distant airship. “Why?”
“That rig,” Cyrus said, pointing again, “is moving too fast to be anything other than a warship.”
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